Chinch Bugs—Have you found them in your lawn?

Chinch bugs, although a very small insect pest, can infest a lawn in great numbers and cause serious damage if not controlled. St. Augustine grass is the primary victim, but chinch bugs have been known to affect other lawn grasses such as zoysia grass, centipede grass, and Bermuda grass.  These sap-sucking insects seem to prefer hot and dry areas of your lawn and may be a lawn problem from late spring through fall. The adults will be 1/6 to 1/5 of an inch long with black bodies and white wings—each wing having a triangular black mark. Each life cycle lasts 7 to 8 weeks and there can be up to 5 generations per year in Texas. Damage to St. Augustine begins with expanding, irregular patches of yellow-stunted grass that may become ‘dead grass’ if the population of feeding chinch bugs is above the ‘threshold level’.
To know if chinch bugs are the critters causing damage to your lawn, hammer an empty coffee can (open at both ends) one-inch into the soil beneath stunted areas and add water. The chinch bugs should float to the top.  Another method is to spray water mixed with a small amount of liquid dishwashing detergent onto the infected sites—the chinch bugs (and some other insects as well) should come to the top of the canopy. The best method is to just get on your hands and knees and search into the canopy of the lawn.  To locate them, search sites that immediately border the infected areas. Once you have determined that chinch bugs are the culprits, use an insecticide for control and always ‘read the label and follow label directions for application’. Insecticides containing bifenthrin, cyfluthrin, or permethrin seem to work well.

Clint Perkins
Wood County Extension Agent
Ag & Natural Resources